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Home > Web Services > Resources > You are here Articles

Our top 10 Accessibility tools

Listed below are 10 of the best tools we’ve found to help with making your website accessible. There’s tools to help you build your forms and tables in an accessible way, and loads of tools to help you test aspects of your site. There’s also an invaluable reference on how people use Assistive Technology.

1. AIS Web Accessibility Toolbar
   The AIS Web Accessibility Toolbar is an extension for Internet Explorer (an Opera version is also available). It is an extremely useful tool and can be used to check a number of issues within a web page.
   
   http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/ais/toolbar/
2. Automated testing tools
   These tools are quick ways to check your site against the machine-testable checkpoints in the WCAG Guidelines. Beware of taking the results of these as gospel though, out of the 65 checkpoints in the guidelines only 3 can be wholly and 10 partially tested automatically.
   
   WebXACT (formally known as Bobby)
   The WebXACT accessibility checker is a useful automated tool enabling you to check some of the accessibility issues your web pages may have. However, like all automated accessibility checking tools, it must be used in conjunction with manual testing to gain a complete picture of the accessibility of your pages. For instance the tool will be able to check that there are no missing alts for images, but it will not be able to determine whether or not the alt text assigned is meaningful and appropriate.
   
   http://webxact.watchfire.com/
   
   The WAVE
   The WAVE is another automated testing tool. It reads the underlying HTML of the web page and returns a report displaying the reading order. This is an excellent way of testing the reading order of forms so that you can ensure the content is logical when being read by a screen reader or viewed in a non graphical browser such as Lynx. It can be downloaded and added as a toolbar in your browser or accessed directly from the AIS Web Accessibility Toolbar.
   
   http://wave.webaim.org/index.jsp
3. W3C HTML Validator
   Having standards-compliant HTML on your website is essential for good accessibility. Assistive technology can exhibit quirky or unpredictable behaviour if your HTML is coded incorrectly. The W3C validator will analyse your webpage and tell you whether you have written valid code, or (if not) where you have gone wrong.
   
   http://validator.w3.org/
4. Accessify Tools
   Accessify provides a step-by-step wizard which runs you through the creation of your  form or table, and then provides you with code to cut ‘n paste into your HTML document. These tools are an excellent way for those new to the area of accessibility to create basic accessible code.
   
   Accessible Form Builder:
   http://www.accessify.com/tools-and-wizards/accessibility-tools/form-builder/
   
   Accessible Table Builder:
   http://www.accessify.com/tools-and-wizards/accessibility-tools/table-builder/
5. Vischeck’s colour blindness tool
   This website has a downloadable tool that includes a number of colour deficit filters which can be applied to your web pages and which simulate the three most common types of colour blindness (i.e. where the individual has difficulty distinguishing between red/green, blue/yellow and blue/purple light).
   
   http://www.vischeck.com/
6. Colour contrast analyser by Juicy Studio
   The Juicy Studio website provides a colour contrast analyser where you can type in the foreground and background colours to assess whether there is sufficient difference in colour and contrast. Not all users, for instance those with colour blindness or older users can easily distinguish between close colour combinations. Additionally, if the text colour and background colour are similar in tone, some users may find this difficult to read.
   
   http://www.juicystudio.com/services/colourcontrast.php
7. The Windows Magnifier
   It is useful to test web pages with Windows Magnifier. Set the magnification to 5x to check whether images and more specifically images of text are still legible. Windows Magnifier is a free piece of software that comes with Windows and is located in the Accessibility Options.
8. Screen readers
   Users who are blind or have a vision impairment can use screen reading software to access the web. Two of the more popular packages are JAWS and Home Page Reader (HPR). In terms of which one to choose for your testing, if you can only have one we’d recommend you try HPR as it doubles up as a text only browser, is cheaper than JAWS and also more representative of the level of sophistication of screen readers as a whole.
   
   JAWS
   JAWS is a screen reader which operates independently of the browser. For web page testing purposes you can use a combination of JAWS and Internet Explorer to hear how a blind user would experience your site. It will flag up to you if there are any issues with navigation, whether your page is structured logically, and if all your links make sense out of context. A 40 minute mode version is available for testing purposes.
   
   http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/JAWS_HQ.asp
   
   Home Page Reader (HPR)
   HPR is a talking web browser- the screen reading software is integrated into the browser. So you can load up web pages directly into it. It contains two panes – one showing the web pages as a sighted user would view it, the other with a high contrast (light text on black) text representing what is being read out. For a sighted user, HPR is a good testing tool, because you can see which bit of the page is being read out on the graphical interface – thus spotting problems fairly rapidly. HPR is not as powerful and feature-laden as JAWS, but is a good testing tool. A free limited time demo can be downloaded from:
   
   http://www-306.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html
9. Alternative Web Browsers
   It is important to test web pages in a variety of browsers to ensure that the content is readable and understandable. It is useful to download a number of different browsers and view web pages in them. Some of the main ones include:
   
   Opera:  http://www.opera.com/download/
   Mozilla Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
   Netscape: http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/
   Lynx Viewer (Text-Only Browser): http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html
   A great resource for previous versions of browsers is: http://browsers.evolt.org/
10. My Web My Way
    AbilityNet has developed a resource in conjunction with the BBC that tells you more about the assistive technology (or AT) disabled individuals use. It also offers information on the ways people alter their browser’s appearance to make things easier for them to read. It is vital that you test the performance and appearance of your pages under a variety of such conditions - and this resource will explain in detail the full range of changes disabled visitors can make to all popular browsers.
    This resource is available at:
    
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility

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